Is Universal Yums Fun For the Family? (Review)

Universal Yums is a monthly subscription service.  We receive a different box each month and the theme is always a different country. So every item in the box is related to that selected country of the month. 

Note: Affiliate links may be used in this post. I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase through my affiliate link. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Now Italy was the country of the month in December 2020. But life happened and this post got delayed! But I really wanted to focus more on the service itself and whether this could be a possible regular monthly family activity that everyone can enjoy together.

Universal Yums Box Sizes

• The smallest size is called the Yum Box at a cost of $14.67 for a 1 year subscription or $16 for month to month
• The medium size is called the Yum Yum Box at a cost of $24.75 for a 1 year subscription or $27 month to month
• The largest size is called the Super Yum Box at a cost of $37.58 for a 1 year subscription or $41 dollars month to month

Please note, this was the cost structure at the time of our purchase. Prices subject to change.

Each time you size up, you receive more food item packages and more content and activities.

Universal Yums is based in the US and we are in Canada. We were so happy that they deliver here, and only charge an additional $3 US. Shipping is free for Americans.

You can also check out our review of Green Kid Crafts for another subscription box idea!

What Comes in the Box

Our first box was all about Italy.  We decided to start with the small size Yum box.  The Italy box contained the following items:

• 8 different snack packages
• booklet about Italy
• postcard sized paper with some information about the country and activities

I knew the Universal Yums would be appealing to everyone in the family, especially the kids who are ages 7 and 9. We all have a sweet tooth. Seriously. Everyday before dinner the kids ask what their after-dinner treat will be! They need to know so they have something to look forward to after dinner and I need them to be motivated to eat their veggies!

The other reason I knew the kids would especially love this is because it’s a great Friday evening activity to do together as a family. It’s the end of the week and we all just want to unwind and do something fun together.  An activity like this is also a nice change from just the usual Friday night movie or board game!

Let the Games Begin!

When the box came, the kids were so excited to try the different snacks and treats and learn all about Italy. We haven’t travelled much with them, especially not overseas, so they really love learning about other countries and cultures.

So of course we started with the taste testing part! Included in the Yum box is a scorecard to rate how we felt about each treat – sweet and salty – that came in the box.  Luckily we had recently watched the movie Ratatouille, so the kids knew what food critics were all about!   

There were 8 items for us to taste:

• Fizzy Lemon Candy
• Lemon and Pepper Tarallini
• Italian Black Truffle Potato Chips
• Ketchup Potato Chips
• Orange Zest Carrot Cake
• Hazelnut Milk Chocolate Bar
• Italian Amarettini
• Tiramisu Cream Milk Chocolate Balls

Remember, this is the basic box. There are 5 additional snacks in the medium box and 8 additional snacks in the largest box.

The Activities in the Booklet and Postcard

1. Food Facts

Inside the booklet, each of the food items is pictured and discussed.  They provide the history of how the food item was created in a fun and interesting way and discuss the key ingredients. A full list of the ingredients is also provided for each item, as well as the nutritional facts. I really loved this little intro to the item before we tried it to give us an idea of what we were about to eat.

The Scorecard

So we took our time and went through each snack, letting the kids take turns picking. We all talked about what we expected it to taste like before we tried it and then gave our critique. By the time we went through all the packages, we had all provided a critique for each one. At the end we tallied up our scores and chose a winner.

There is also an option to select not only the favorite, but also the worst and what we felt was the weirdest yum snack! You can then take a picture of the final scorecard and send it to Universal Yums on social media to qualify for a chance to win more of your favorite Yum snack selected. There are 10 winners every month.

Otherwise you always have to option to visit the Universal Yum shop to purchase more of any of the treats you just couldn’t get enough of!

2. Fun Facts about the Country

There were a few informative blurbs under a section called Italy in 60 seconds.

3. Trivia

There were a couple of pages of trivia questions. Of course the kids were clueless but had fun guessing anyway!

4. Other

A small picture of a map of Italy was provided and a fact or two about the main cities.  There were also a couple of simple recipes.

Overall Review

This is my overall review of the Universal Yums subscription box:

Value for Money

As mentioned above, the basic box is $15 U.S. and $3 U.S. shipping for Canadians. It is just $15 for Americans with free shipping, so its an even better deal for American families.

We are a family of 4, and we basically ate everything in the box. I felt like it was enough to call it dessert! To feed a family of 4 dessert for $15 is a not a bad deal. On top of that we are getting an activity booklet to go through together.  It’s a solid 2 hours of fun to go through everything properly and learning about the country.  I would say it is definitely worth it for $15.

Educational

We really love the theme, which is just countries around the world.  It gives us an opportunity to learn about different countries, the culture and some of their customs. 

What I also love about this is that it created further conversation and interest beyond just what was in the booklet. So we grabbed our phones, looked up some facts and talked more about the major cities and famous people from there.  We also looked at a bigger map to show the kids where it was in Europe.

Fun

Its definitely a theme that the kids were interested in and really excited about. Of course opening each snack bag and tasting them was probably the most fun part.

Worth the Time

For my family, this was a lovely evening spent.

I purchased the Universal Yums box myself and this was my review. I have decided to become an affiliate of the subscription service only because my family really enjoyed it. If you purchase through our link we will make a small commission, at no cost to you. We only post reviews of products that our families truly enjoyed. Thank you for your support! You can purchase an individual box or a subscription here.

We are looking forward to learning about the next country!